Jaguars' punting game seeks change of direction

In all his 16 years as an NFL punter, Matt Turk had never experienced anything like what happened Sunday in Carolina when four inches of rain fell on the stadium in less than an hour.

"The balls were saturated, my hands were saturated, shoes were completely soaked and I couldn't squeeze the ball the least bit without it squirting out of my hands," Turk said. "The worst conditioned balls and field that I've ever played in."

That led to a routine punt in the third quarter of Sunday's game turning into punting disaster. The ball squirted out of Turks hands, and as he picked it up to try and salvage the play, Turk was tackled 11 yards back, giving the Carolina Panthers tremendous field position.

It was a fluky play, but beyond that Turk, 43, hasn't had an easy transition to the Jaguars punting style. A hang-time punter reliant on his strong leg for the past nine seasons, Turk, who the Jaguars signed in free agency this summer, is now re-learning directional punting and the learning curve has been visible. The Jaguars added a wrinkle three weeks ago when they began teaching him a rugby-style punt for use in short-punting situations.

"We're learning how to do something, kind of teaching an old dog a new trick," Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said. "And the style that he's been using hasn't been effective. So I'm sure he'll be open-minded to considering other alternatives."

The Jaguars have not worked out any punters this week. Del Rio said while working out a punter isn't in their immediate plans, he wouldn't rule it out of Turk's performances don't improve.

One might expect a player's strength to decrease as he ages, but that hasn't been the case for Turk. Instead what was his strong point throughout his career has become a problem for the Jaguars. Too often his punts go booming into the end zone when the Jaguars are looking for a shorter punt to pin opponents inside the 20.

Against the New York Jets he punted from the Jets 44 and 46 and both went into the end zone. He had one successful punt from Jets territory when Turk hit a 41-yarder downed at the eight yard line.

Last weekend in difficult weather conditions, Turk netted 31 yards per punt and only had one downed inside the 20-yard line. That was downed at the 19.

"I've gotten to the point where because I'm a hang-time punter, my coaches pretty much just wanted me to hit the ball down the middle of the field with a lot of hang and let your coverage team do all the work," Turk said. "Here it's directional. They want the ball outside the numbers. It's a little bit different. It's something you get better at with each game."

Turk didn't realize directional punting would be such a large part of his job when he came to the Jaguars. He was drawn to the club because of its strong punt coverage unit which includes former Pro Bowl selections Kassim Osgood and Montell Owens.

The kind of directional punting the Jaguars are asking Turk to do was a specialty of Adam Podlesh who left Jacksonville in free agency after the Chicago Bears paid him $10 million over five years.

To fix the issue, Jaguars coaches have begun trying rugby-style punting with Turk. Instead of kicking the broad side of the football, rugby-style punts require kicking the point.

"He tries to say, 'I only want to punt this ball 40 yards and I'm going to swing nice and easy,' and he hits the sweet spot on that ball and it goes 50 yards instead of 40 yards," said Jaguars special teams coach Russ Purnell. "Whereas if you're rugby style and you're getting that end over end, it just can't travel as far. I think you've got a bigger margin for error where you can control your distance much better. You can kind of eliminate the really long punt."

They'll use those punts in opposing territory near midfield, when the Jaguars will be looking for shorter punts to pin opponents as close as possible to their own goal line.

Turk has already put last Sunday's game out of his mind. His years in the NFL have taught him to look forward.

"I've done it for so long," Turk said. "I realize that I'm gonna have bad games, I'm gonna have good games. You can't get too high or low after either one. You gotta know what your skills are and what your abilities are and have confidence in that and go back to the basics and try and get back on track."

Tania Ganguli: (904) 359-4401

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